


Bottled happiness and a rush of nostalgia

by captain_emmajones



Series: of cinnamon, chocolate and bitterness [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Emma Angst, Emma's Past, F/M, cs fluff, kinda cs angst a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 05:29:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6643210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captain_emmajones/pseuds/captain_emmajones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once again digging into Emma's part, this time the key word is photograph.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bottled happiness and a rush of nostalgia

Emma is six years old when she discovers the concept of photographs, and she’s immediately attracted to it.

“People photograph thing they don’t ever want to see die...” explains her foster father as her goodnight tale.

He has warm brown eyes, and the tenderest smile she has ever been greeted by. He speaks in a low voice, a very soft voice that makes her feel safe as she lays between the sheets. 

“...They photograph things they don’t see themselves live without. Or you know Emma, things they find beautiful, like you know when we were at that lake the other day and you insisted on swimming in that dirty water…”

She giggles at the thought, so calm and happy, and hopeful, because he likes her, he really does, and he smells like chocolate pie and something manly but very reassuring.

She knows it now, she’s going to stay with them and be loved.

Because that other day, at the lake, he photographed her. 

. 

She learns later, when she’s back in the system, _we are getting too old Emma, we won’t be able to take care of your properly_ , that even though people photograph things they don’t ever want to see die, they can kill them without a second thought.

She knows she’s unfair, thinking like that, when she has seen the exhaustion in those brown eyes. 

But that fact is they liked her and they didn’t fight for her. 

(And if it’s that easy to give up on someone you love, then what’s the point of loving at all.)

.

They’ve been dating for a month when Emma finds a picture of herself on Neal’s phone.

He’s busy getting them lunch and she isn’t the busybody type but he has forgotten his phone on his seat and she just wanted to see his phone background, and oh she’s freaking out. 

She stares mortified at the stolen picture of her, the stolen moment, the bottled happiness, heart beating loudly in her chest. 

On the photograph, she’s smiling, an arm outside of the car, wearing one of Neal’s shirt. The sun is making her hair look golden, and the worst part is she remembers exactly this moment.

They were stuck in traffic, and she was irritated, and he had tried to cheer her up. He hated it when she was down, and then he had made fun of her grumpy temper, and she had loosen it.

As she tenses her fingers around the phone, she’s struck by the inevitable.

She’s completely and utterly in love with this stupid thief idiot and it’s terrifying her because she knows very well people in general, they leave, and... he seems to love her too. 

_...Or you know Emma, things they find beautiful…_

.

Photographing their baby, it’s one of the first thing that parents do when they get to hold their first born child. 

When the tiny little human is safely wrapped in his mother’s arms, it’s the instinct of the other parent to whisper a mortified and excited “Wait !” before getting out a camera and holding it like the Graal. 

In an instant, the moment is immortalized and the happiness stands still, unwavering. 

They want to remember everything.

Especially with their first kid, because it’s all new and precious and how could they forget the size of those minuscule pink feet. 

They photograph their enfant almost everyday, so that one day when their kid isn’t one anymore, he’ll get to look at those picture and see how far he’s come. 

Mostly, see that his parents were always there, that they looked after him, that there’s never been a moment where they hadn’t tried to catch him before the fall. 

And then, one day, when the parents aren’t there anymore to remember him, so that he can not forget that he mattered. 

That for a short period of time, to their eyes, he was the most precious being. 

.

Emma doesn’t want any photograph of her baby. 

It would have probably been different if someone had been there to take the picture, if someone had been holding her hand, telling her that it would be okay, that they were going to do this together.

She swallows hard, tears burning her eyes, and this ache in her throat, in her chest, everywhere.

_People photograph things they don’t want to forget._

.

On the way home from New York to Storybrooke, she wonders who has told Hook about photographs. She’s been driving for a good hour when she lays an eye on his asleep body in the passenger seat. 

She rediscovers the brown dishevelled hair, the timidly tan skin, the elegant nose, the charming and full pinkish lips and…

Frowning, she’s suddenly struck by how much younger he looks unconscious. 

It’s probably because his eyelids are closed, and therefore one can’t be graced by the turmoil of two bewitching oceans. 

Her throat is tight as she concentrates herself again on the road, mumbling a very delicate _what the hell Emma he’s not that handsome_. She then tries very hard to remind herself that she is very angry at him because he has woken her up from her dream and really that’s not fair. 

She swallows her pride, quickly glancing once again at him between her eyelashes.

Deep down, she’s very well aware of the reason she’s so inexplicably mad at the pirate.

She wishes she had taught him about photographs, and maybe she would have hastily murmured that she wanted one of him. 

Well, for that last part, one could always dream. 

.

“May I have the honor ?” he asks her in the sheriff station, and his voice is the most soothing one she has ever heard. 

The box is in her hands, and she knows her hold is far too strong on the object. Truth to be told, when he’s looking at her like that, she feels like her heart is about to explode between her ribs. 

She begs for air, her inner voice screaming that she has never shared this with anyone else, that she should protect herself from him and his loving everything. 

Still, a very tiny part of her whispers that she can trust him, that he’s going to stay, and even dares to assert that he’s in love with her. 

(And maybe, just maybe, that she might be in love with him.)

She gives him the box. 

The next second, he’s staring at a picture of her and Neal, and it triggers her anxiety so much that her breath is stolen from her.

Overwhelmed, she waits for his reaction. 

But then he’s gazing at her with compassion and understanding, and in that instant she’s certain.

This is it, it’s him.

(That day she promises herself to take a photograph of them at their next date.)


End file.
